Jackson Township woman raises steer to donate meat to ministry

Tuesday

Nov 12, 2013 at 10:26 PM

Dana Ward, 20, a Jackson Township resident and student at Walsh University, for the second year is raising a steer with her own money and will donate the beef to Canton Calvary Mission. Last year, she was able to donate 800 pounds of meat.

Christina McCune IndeOnline.com staff writer @cmccuneINDE

She's a young woman with a cow. And she's able to help more than 600 area families in need.

Dana Ward, of Jackson Township, is raising her second steer with a plan to donate the beef in December to families who receive help from the Canton Calvary Mission at 1345 Gibbs Ave. NE.

In the fall of 2011, Ward bought a steer, raised it, and last December she was able to donate 800 pounds of ground beef to the mission through the meat ministry at Church of the Lakes in Jackson Township. Ward named the cow Gibbs — after the neighborhood of the mission.

This December, the 20-year-old Walsh University student hopes to donate about the same amount from Gibbs Jr. — the steer she purchased during the spring with her boyfriend, Stan Soehnlen of Navarre. Soehnlen is splitting the cost of the upkeep with Ward. The couple has received donations from family members, friends and church members to help raise the cow and offset processing costs.

MEAT MINISTRY

Year-round, as one of its many ministries, Church of the Lakes donates between 150 and 160 pounds of beef every week to the food pantry at Canton Calvary Mission, said Sebia Crum, a longtime member of the church and volunteer at the mission.

"Due to the cuts in the food banks, they weren't getting much meat to give away," Crum said. "The food bank doesn't have a lot and when they do the mission buys what they can with donations, but a lot of time it's just too expensive to buy."

She said Ward's donation from her cow helps significantly.

"That'll give us four to five weeks that we don't have to purchase the meat," Crum said. "That way our meat fund builds back up. People have got into the habit of donating monthly to the meat fund."

About a dozen church members meet every Tuesday afternoon at the church to cut 10-pound rolls and wrap them into one-pound packages. Crum takes the packages to Canton Calvary Mission for distribution every Wednesday.

"That meat ministry is wonderful because meat is expensive for pantries to get," said Marie Senften-Deitz, executive director of Canton Calvary Mission.

Last month, 659 families benefited from the food pantry at Canton Calvary Mission, Senften-Deitz said. The food pantry is one of the programs at the mission, which in 2012 served 6,711 households or 22,516 people in six zip codes in the Canton area. In emergency situations, people go to the mission from Massillon, Alliance and the southern part of the county, she said.

After the meat from Ward's steer is packaged, families who visit the pantry once a month will each receive a pound or two of ground beef. By the end of the month, the hamburger will have been spread out among more than 600 families.

"It was her idea to do it, and what other young person would do that? She's exceptional," Crum said.

WHY BUY A COW?

Ward said she remembers sitting in church a few years ago and hearing about how Church of the Lakes helps Canton Calvary Mission. Coordinators were seeking monetary donations to help with the project, but Ward thought that with her experience in 4H she could make a bigger impact by buying and raising the cow herself and donating the beef.

Andy Jacobs, a member of Church of the Lakes who organizes the meat ministry at the church, said the idea to supply meat to the mission's food pantry was sparked back in 2005 while he and fellow church member Rusty Miller were going trout fishing in West Virginia.

"As we were driving through the mountains, we were thinking about how lucky we are to just pick up and go fishing," Jacobs recalled. "We saw people working hard on that hot October day and thought that we could do something to help those that couldn't just take a day off from work."

Jacobs said this was a couple of months after Hurricane Katrina had hit and food banks from every state were sending food to the Gulf Coast.

"We decided that we had people that still needed food in Stark County," Jacobs said.

Church of the Lakes had a partnership with Canton Calvary Mission, so for the first couple of years, he and Miller bought the beef to supply about 160 pounds per week to the mission. Soon other people joined and started donating money and contributing monthly to the meat ministry.

"We are so appreciative of Dana," Jacobs said. "That was unsolicited and just something that caught her heart and she decided to do it, and this is her second year."

Last year, Ward was able to raise the steer with money she had saved up from being in 4H, and she also worked on a horse farm. Donations came in and family helped out. This year, a large donation will cover the processing cost.

Ward said she hopes to continue to do the project every year for as long as she can.

"I like it so it doesn't seem like a lot of work," she said. "I like having cows. I've always wanted to get more involved with community service."

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